New Year's Revolutions

I just counted, and I posted a total of 7 times during 2015.  That's a little sad, seeing as my goal was to post once a week.  Here's a breakdown of what's draining my writing reserve (I can only write so much, before I want to watch TV again):

• My journal (trying to write every day, but maybe getting once a week or so)
• This blog (trying to write every week, but maybe getting once a month or so)
• My short story/novel/work of fiction.  I don't know really know how long it's going to be.  It started out as a short story, but I thought I could do better.  Now the goal is 50,000 words, and to sell it as an eBook on Amazon.  Hopefully I'll remember to look for beta readers in the future.  As soon as I finish the first draft.  (3243 words down, 46757 to go)
• Twitter.  Surprisingly, it's easier to tweet funny things.  With only 140 characters, I don't feel the pressure of filling an entire screen with words.  Follow me (@gkthurston) for some of the random things I think about throughout the day, since that's apparently what Twitter is for.
• Facebook.  Posting on Facebook is somewhat of a rarity, but I can't resist commenting on articles and posts that declare pseudoscience as fact.

So, a summary of what's been happening since the last post:

• College football.  BYU lost to Utah in the Las Vegas Bowl 35-28.  And they almost sent the game into overtime.  It's more impressive if you remember that the score at the end of the first quarter was 35-0.
• More college football.  I developed an algorithm to rank the college football teams based on win-loss record and margin of victory.  It gave fairly reasonable results, and will be published for the last time this season following the National Championship Game.  (http://tinyurl.com/CTMatrixRank)
• The internet came through and helped pay for a rocking chair for my wife.  You internet folks are amazing!  Also, the rocking chair is optimal for feeding an infant.
• I agreed with something President Obama said. Here
• Sam helped ease us into sleep deprivation by having a fever for a long time, at one point high enough to warrant going to the emergency room.  And then I learned that the emergency room isn't a magical place where things get fixed, and they just want to make sure you're taking tylenol and ibuprofen, and staying hydrated.  Now I know.
• We welcomed a 8 lb. 14 oz. human into the world and named her Adelaide Ellen Louise.  And that's when the real sleep deprivation started.  
• My grandmother passed away the following morning.  That meant a spontaneous overnight trip to Utah for the funeral.  At least I got to fly first class on the way home and know what I"m paying extra for.
• Had family in town for Christmas and Addie's birth.  It was really fun to have my mom in town, and Sam loved playing with "Nona."  The in-laws also came, which meant delicious food and fun adventures.  Including looking for pie tins on Christmas Day with my father-in-law and finally ending up at Denny's for two pie tins, full of frozen pie.  Pie for dayz!

In conclusion, I like lists, I realize my writing style needs a lot of polishing with regards to storytelling, and here is a picture of our recently expanded family, with me looking like I'm 12.

No idea what I'm looking at, but it's 2016 now, so maybe the future.

Just Another Post

It's been a while, so I'm just giving you the bullet point version of blogging.

Things that I don't think I've blogged about yet:

• I love my family!
• I'm on Twitter! (@gkthurston)
• Toddler Thor apparently wants to be Iron Man (see video)
• I love college football!  
• I made this thing
• I'm terrible at blogging
• Grad school is hard
• Mathematica is difficult for me to figure out, so I use Matlab instead
• My writing projects die because I don't actually have time for them
• I'm reading the Book of Mormon (again!)
• My goal is to finish before next General Conference
• I need to work on writing in my journal
• This is another of my goals from General Conference
• Baseball is an acceptable alternative to college football (saving my CFB offseason)



My first (and only so far) MLB game. Thanks Elli and Tom!

• New apartment
• Double the square footage
• Double the bathrooms
• Double the curtains
• Double the fun!
• New baby (soon!)
• It also means I can't wait for Christmas/my birthday because my mommy will come visit me and I like snow.
• I like tutoring more than research.  A lot more.  Makes for difficult life choices ahead.
• And $40/hr. isn't bad either.
• My phone finally died.  Saving up for a new one.
• A cracked screen eventually (4 months later) lead to a phone on a continuous power up/down cycle, with no way to stop it, besides letting the battery die.
• Only $200 to replace it though (no phone insurance, expensive phone, should have gotten a case, blah, blah, blah.  I KNOW!)
• Other stuff probably happened, but I don't remember off the top of my head.

Well, hopefully that was somewhat interesting to someone in the universe.  The Church is true, life is good.  Time to get back to work.  Go team!

Spanish Blue

My little brother, Danny, has started a blog called Spanish Blue.  I'm assuming that since you like my blog (at least you're reading it) you'll like his even more.  It's like my blog getting an upgrade.

This is all I knew about Jenner growing up.  I didn't even realize
he had anything to do with the Kardashians.
Well, congrats on your gold medal, I guess.

Anyway, the idea here is that if he can blog, so can I.  Plus, I didn't want my last post ever to be about Bruce Jenner.

So, updates.  Well, #ToddlerThor is bigger than ever, and talks to himself in his own language.  It sounds like a mixture of English and Chinese, though it's probably a mixture of English and made up noises that sound funny.  I can't wait until he learns to read and figures out that Dad's scribbles are not just coloring.  It's a secret code for sounds!

Project #IronBaby is also well on her way.  20 weeks down, 20 to go.  So far, everything is normal, and Hayley says she moves around all the time.

Only four more years of graduate school left.  Which means one down.  If you know of a good job for chemists with a Ph.D. that require no previous industrial experience (I only have 3 months of experience in industry.  This pesky little thing called school gets in the way.) and pay big bucks (anything >$27,000 would be nice) and will be around in 4 years, let me know.

Lastly, we are officially all Cougar fans in this house.  The brainwashing is complete!  Also, Toddler Thor informs me that BYU plays in every sporting event on TV, even in MLB games.  Good to know that BYU wins so many games.

Well, I guess I better let you get on with the rest of your lives.  #GoCougs!

Veritas et Virtus

My Thoughts on What Bruce Jenner Did

Please be aware that this is a rough draft that I may never have the time to polish.

Before we get started, here are some assumptions I'm making.  If you disagree with these, please just assume they are true for a moment.  I'm a scientist, not a lawyer or logician:

1. God exists.  If there is no God, there is no compelling reason to make a decision in any direction, besides the relatively short-term consequences of that decision.  
2. God is our Heavenly Father.  As such, he created us in His image.
3. "Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose."
4. Same-sex attraction is real, but is not a action.  Homosexuality is the result of acting on same-sex attraction.

I don't think that what Bruce Jenner (or whatever he wants to be called now) did should be celebrated.  

Please carefully read the above sentence before you jump down to comment.  This sentence, except for maybe what is between the parentheses, is exactly what I would say to someone at work, school, church, wherever I am, if they asked me how I felt about the how Bruce Jenner thing.

Personally, I think that what Bruce Jenner did was wrong, both in my eyes, and in the eyes of God.  We should discuss that more.  This goes back to my second assumption, God created us in His image.  But does God make mistakes?  I don't believe that he does.  God gave some people the tendency to become alcoholics.  God gave some people the tendency to become chain smokers.  God gave some people the tendency to commit homosexual acts.  In fact, everyone has the tendency to commit sin and go against God's commandments.  Did God make a mistake?  What about those born with physical disabilities, or those born with Down's syndrome, or those who are born with six fingers?  God doesn't make mistakes.  He gives people challenges in order for them to grow into the people He knows they can become.

Does everyone having challenges make everyone a terrible person?  Absolutely not.  But should we celebrate people for committing sin?  Again, absolutely not.  Please don't misunderstand me on this point.  I don't care that much whether my neighbor has tendencies to become a chain smoker, to become an alcoholic, or whether they experience same-sex attraction.  I feel sad for them because they can be difficult things to deal with, but I feel happy for them because the Atonement of Jesus Christ is available for them to use.  I feel happy about the Atonement because everything that is unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement, including the difficulties we suffer in mortality.  But I do not believe in celebrating the fact that my neighbor is a chain smoker, is persistently drunk, or participates in homosexual behavior.  This applies to Mr. Jenner as well.

Because gender is an essential characteristic of eternal identity, do you think that God would accidentally give someone the wrong sex in mortality?  Whether He does or He doesn't, it isn't accidental.  But because gender is so eternal, I believe the situation will be corrected in the eternities, just like any other unfairness we encounter in mortality.

So, while I feel that Mr. Jenner has had some difficult things to deal with in his life, I believe that the Atonement of Jesus Christ will bring more healing than any surgeon could.  And his elective surgery is not something to be celebrated.